How To Make a Lewis Bag from a Pair of Old Jeans

Over at The Kitchn blog, Sara Kate Gillingham-Ryan was facing a problem. She had a bottle of rye whiskey and wanted some ice shards for chilling it down. What to do? She recalled how her dad always solved that dilemma: he’d take an expired pair of jeans and have Sara Kate’s mom cut off part of one pants leg and sew it into a bag. Then he’d use a mallet and whack the hell out of the ice.

What is this but a denim Lewis bag? A Lewis bag, if you’ve never heard of one, is a canvas bag used for exactly this same purpose. If you’ve seen the video in the Mint Julep post I put up last week, you’ve seen a Lewis bag. Now you can make your own, using denim.

Yes, as Sara Kate points out in her post, you need to think about the dyes and washes used to make denim, but I don’t personally feel that there’s much to worry about. I’m going to try this; it looks like a brilliant idea.